“Vertumnus.”
“And now, having read this over, I see clearly that it is beyond your understanding, my friend, and so it may be that it will never reach your eyes.”
It never did.
[VIII.]
It sometimes rains even in Arcady.
When Ethan arose the next morning he found that Apollo was taking a rest and that Jupiter was having things all his own way. At the foot of the orchard the little river was foaming and boiling with puny ferocity. The grass was beaten and drenched and the foliage was adrip. But in the shelter of the elm outside the window a robin chirped cheerfully, thinking doubtless of gustatory joys to come.
“Well, you’re taking it philosophically, my friend,” muttered Ethan, “and I might as well follow your example, even though I have a soul above fat worms. It’s got to stop sometime, and I might as well make the best of it meanwhile. Still,” he added ruefully, “a whole day in this ramshackle old ark doesn’t appeal to me much.”
He dressed leisurely, ate breakfast slowly, and afterward sought to kill time with a book by a window in the tap-room. The volume, a paper-clad novel left by some former guest, answered well enough. It is doubtful if he could have given undivided attention to the most engrossing story ever written. The rain, streaking down the tiny panes, caught strange hues from the old glass and the light from the crackling logs in the fire-place. Sometimes they were green like tender new apple leaves in May, sometimes blue like rain-drenched violets, like—no, not like but, rather, reminiscent of, certain eyes! Ah, there was food for thought! The novel was turned face-downward on his knee, the cigarette drooped thoughtfully from the corner of his mouth and his hands went deep into his pockets. Those eyes! Rain-drenched violets? By jove, yes! No simile, no comparison could be better! Rain-drenched violets touched by the yellow light of the sun stealing back through gray clouds! Rather an elaborate description, he thought with a smile at his sentimentalism. The smile deepened as he recalled the infinitesimal blue circle under the left eye, a little blue vein showing with charming distinctness against the warm pallor of the skin like a vein in soft-toned marble. It was a little thing to recall, little in all ways, but it seemed to him a veritable triumph of the memory! By half closing his eyes he could almost see it.